Chapter 9 - The Unraveling of Vanessa Cole
Halfway across the ballroom, standing near the champagne fountain with a group of friends who were pretending not to stare, Vanessa Cole gripped her crystal flute so hard her knuckles turned the color of chalk.
She had managed to slip into the gala using a discarded ticket from a junior socialite, desperate to prove she wasn't broken by the breakup.
Instead, she watched Marcus Hail—the most eligible, untouchable bachelor in New York—look at a former hotel maid with an expression of such fierce, unadulterated devotion that even the society columnists whispering behind their hands looked uncomfortable.
“He looks... happy,” one of Vanessa’s friends muttered awkwardly, sipping her champagne. “I’ve never seen Marcus look at you like that, Vanessa.”
“Shut up,” Vanessa hissed through clenched teeth, her eyes blazing with a mixture of humiliation and murderous rage. “He’s playing a game. He’ll get bored of her within a month. She’s nobody. She doesn't belong in our world.”
“I don't know, darling,” another friend murmured, nodding toward the dance floor where the first notes of a slow waltz were beginning to play. “Look at them.”
In the center of the polished mahogany floor, Marcus had pulled Clara into his arms.
She rested her head against his shoulder, her eyes closed, her breathing steady and content. Marcus held her as if she were the only real thing in a room full of glass and mirrors.
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For the first time in her life, Vanessa Cole realized something terrifying: the wealth, the dresses, the pedigree, and the social standing hadn't mattered at all. Marcus hadn't left her because he fell out of love; he left her because he had never loved her in the first place.
Without a word, Vanessa turned on her heel, pushed past the waiters carrying trays of hors d'oeuvres, and stormed out of the Plaza Hotel into the cold Manhattan night, knowing she would never set foot in their world again.
